Loving Yourself Today With Food!

Today I am Grateful for Nourishing Foods and the enriching sense of Well-being that comes from localizing Community. Fall is in the chilly air! As I rode my bike back from a morning meditation, I saw pumpkins strung along porches and doors left open for arriving guests. I thought to myself "Today I am not worried. Today I am free." I am super pleased to be writing this to share my Joy, Love and Inspiration with you!

It was on this ride I realized what I have to be Greatful for; Nourishment! (among many other things: Love, Community, Family, Friends, Shelter, and Abundance.) I think that overall it is the one Holiday that comes close to making Peace with the Earth. As I rode home, I suddenly knew that in comparison to this wonderful Thankfulness, and this great coming together of Communities, that Halloween has become in the Western world a shameful mockery of Gratitude and of Thankfulness. Instead of remembering and honoring the dead as latin American cultures do on The Day of the Dead we sacrifice our Beloved children to dead foods. How disgraceful, unloving, and un-nourishing! This single practice alone makes our Western culture look extremely silly and wasteful to outsiders!

Perhaps it would be useful, in order to be more totally Thankful today, if we begin to realize what not thankful is like. Let's use Halloween as an anti-thankful example. On Halloween, so called "Junk Food" is handed out. And isn't that a perfectly fitting description for the foods that fill children's pillow cases and plastic pumpkins each Fall? Is this is how we choose to "treat" our children? With junk, disguised as food? I've just discovered a link that claims Snickers and Candy Corn are in a tie for the most common "treat" handed out on Halloween. Let's look at what we are feeding our Children for Halloween (and over the following months where the candy still lingers).

Snickers Ingredients:milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skimmed milk, lactose, milkfat, soy lecithin, artificial flavour), peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, skimmed milk, butter, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, lactose (a milk product), salt, egg whites and artificial flavour. (From Wikipedia)

Candy Corn Ingredients: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Confectioner’s Glaze, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Salt, Artificial Colors, (FDC Yellow 6 Lake, Red #40, Red 40 Lake, Yellow #5, Yellow #6, Blue 1 Lake, Blue #1, Yellow 5 Lake), Egg Whites, Honey Glycerin, Mineral Oil, Carnauba Wax (From candy corn website)

As you may know, as per FDA food labeling requirements, ingredients are listed in descending order. This means that the ingredient listed first is the most abundant in the chosen product. In this case Sugar is first, so Sugar is most abundant in Candy Corn and Snickers.

So what is wrong with a little sugar in our diets?

In today's over-processed, sugar-crazed society, the average person consumes 154 pounds of sugar per year! That's 53 teaspoons of sugar per day! Now let's pretend that sugar actually has some benefits, eating one-half pound per day may not seem like such a bad idea. But the truth is that refined sugar has absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. Not only does it completely lack nutritional value, it also robs the body of enzymes, minerals and vitamins, especially B-vitamins. Symptoms of B-vitamin deficiency include: fatigue, depression, anxiety, inability to concentrate, poor memory, insomnia, rapid/irregular heart beat, swollen/inflamed tongue, dry skin around the nose and cracking around the lips. Considering the amount of sugar consumed in this country, it's no surprise so many Americans suffer from symptoms of a B-vitamin deficiency. (from The Kitchen Transition by Lori Lapinksi)

So B-Vitamin deficiency... Doesn't sound like a Treat that I would like to pass on to the upcoming generation.. or any generation!

Lori goes on to explain more on the detriments of sugar in our diets:

Eating too much sugar also creates blood sugar imbalances in the body. When blood sugar drops too low (shortly after eating a high-sugar meal or snack) the fuel supply to the body is impaired, with adverse effects on mental function, physical energy and emotional stability. Symptoms of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) can range anywhere from headaches, irritability and shaking when hungry to explosive anger, panic attacks, or crying easily for no apparent reason. Not only can sugar affect the quality of your day but it can also make you sick. Many studies have shown that sugar is very effective in weakening the immune system and is a source of fuel for feeding cancer and tumors.

Ok, so now it really hits home! At first I just didn't want children getting poor nutrition, but now I don't want them acting crazy either! That is asking a lot! Imagine- Healthy Children!

For me, the picture is clear. Celebrating Halloween by handing out industialized anti-nutritious "candy", carving silly faces in our food and letting it rot on our doorstep, on the one hand being extremely un-thankful. On the other side, eating nutritious pumpkins, and sharing the moment with one another, is a very Thankful thing to do, today or any other day!

Eat good Food today! Please, do it for the Earth, for the Moment, For You, For your Loved ones.. for Anything! Just love yourself today with some loving food!
Eat some Organic popcorn, dates, oranges, whatever tastes good to you and is a Traditional food that is Nourishing.

Workin in the Nude!

Ever think that you couldn't do a certain activity in the Nude? Well, turns out almost anything can be done comfortably in the Nude!

Check out a recent blog by Diary of a Nudist that shows people loving Nude work!

Just recently while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in Northern Washinton, I found that the best way to keep dry and warm while it was raining was to work Naked. The above photo is of me digging a trench around our tent, to keep our tent out of a puddle-under-tent situation! The physical effort of digging the trench warmed me up, and the mist on my skin easily evaporated and/or was wiped off with a towel once I got back in the tent. Besides the practicality of this, it was a a very pleasurable sensory rich experience!

A day for Earthly Reflection

Well, hello Naked ones! It has been awhile, and I have been meaning to post for some time.. Hope that you are still around, I would love to hear all of your Naked words too!

Today is 101010, a great time to reflect on this planet earth and our role as humans. For me, this has been a long road... seeking confidence in living in "harmony" with the earth.. How does one live one's life this way?? Fall is an exciting, wonderful, and abundant time of year. It may seem awkward to reflect on the need to change.. perhaps this is more of a wintertime activity.. but since we're here, why not take some time to hear what one man has to say about playing a serious role in the future of our planet:

Check out this video series interview with Derrick Jensen.

I have found more and more that love starts with ourselves.. that the way we treat ourselves is reflected in our personal relationships, in our environment, in everything we come into contact with.. If I don't take time to care for myself, I am more likely to not take the time to care for you, or the environment.. Right?

One way that we can love ourselves and the planet is by opening up ourselves to Listening. Listen to ourselves, our planet, the land, the plants, the animals that are all around us.. Let go and feel whatever it is.. tension sadness, anger, joy...

"I would let go of all my tension with noisy, uninhibited sobs. I cried in a way that adults hardly ever cry, the heart filled with sorrow."- Catherine Millet

Perhaps it is through this process, in listening to our voice.. our true heartfelt voice that we find out life's direction.. our planet's direction.. and our local environment's direction.. If we can truly listen, and create community locally and globally, then all we have to do is keep going in that direction.. keep loving and listening and learning.. moving towards what we know must be..

"If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking" -Buddhist proverb

If you must walk.. walk in the right direction.. and don't forget to take off all of your clothes, as well as your mental "clothing".. May you be Naked in all that you Do. May the soft Fall breezes bless the hair on your head, and the loving leaves of nature's garden brush along your bare backside.. whispering words of love, freedom, and divine protection..


*Sunset photo taken near Pirate's Cove, San Luis Obispo county

WNBR 2010 San Francisco!

The ride gathered at Thomas Herman Plaza from 12-1 and we all started bicycling in a big circle in the plaza just after 1 o'clock. We then rode bikes leisurely through the city, mostly through tourist dense areas, allowing for hundreds and hundreds of camera and i-phone photo ops for tourists naturally expecting this kind of thing in San Francisco! There was an extended break at City Hall around 3 o'clock or so. It was great to enjoy the shade, and many Naked bikers bought ice cream from a street vendor with a rolling cooler/cart.

In one of the above photos of City Hall you might notice that as this throng of 30 or so Naked bikers descended with their rolling flesh cloud upon City Hall, a couple was happily having their wedding photos taken on the front steps! Since city hall was near where I was staying and I was already very sun-fried I headed home early, as the enthusiastic group biked on in the Nude.

I am feeling very grateful, having met some great folks in person for the first time, including Edward and Woody. I shared many fun chants along the ride with a Nude "family" for the day. Most of the usual WNBR chants were repeated throughout the ride: "Less Gas, More Ass!!", "Burn Fat, Not Oil!!" or sometimes a Nude biker would just yell to a motorist stalled at a stoplight "Get a bike!".

I would like to send out a big "Thank You" to my loving partner Jen! Thanks for your support, watching my "Smart Sharp" business stand at Farmers Market while I was gone, and helping with my share of family farm work! I love you!


In short, I had an incredibly good time at this year's World Naked Bike Ride. I especially enjoyed biking Naked along the tourist clutterd Embarcadero as I took in the views out onto the beautiful and sunny SF bay Nakedly honking, bell ringing, and chanting the whole way! I totally relished in the opportunity to feel the wind slide gracefully along my Naked body as it twisted and turned down the super steep and slowly snaking Lombard street. San Francisco is an awesome host city for the event and showed a great turnout by bay area riders too. What great crowds who cheered us on as we rode! Thank you to all that did!!

It might seem silly or "Hallmarky", but this was, for me a truly unforgettable experience! Perhaps the delight and relishment that I feel is a bit unusual and kinky in it's mathematical simplicity. For, why did I enjoy it so much? I think I really didn't know what to expect, but I did expect something, and that something was I guess relatively small in proportion to the enormity of the actual ride itself. Wow! What a thrill to have a group of us 100 or so riders (near the start) take off down the street, and get the vibrant and encouraging cheers from hundreds upon hundereds of wild eyed iphone wielding tourists!!

Not long before we rode up to City Hall, I recall a long street with tourists lining each sidewalk snapping photos and smiling, and a double decker bus paused in the middle of the street filled with excited tourists checking us out.. I wonder, what was that tour guide saying through the PA before and AFTER we rode by? What a difference huh? What I am most stoked about is that we could light up so many people's day and give them a story to tell upon their return home to someplace nestled deep in the corn country of Iowa or tucked away in the snow fields of a far away country that I've never even heard of...